The primary purpose of the Multi-ethnic Emphasis Core is to promote cardiovascular and respiratory health by developing culturally competent research that addresses the issues within under-served multi-ethnic communities. Specifically the goal is to extend capacity for multi-ethnic community capacity-building research, including collaboration with communities to address health issues related to disparities attributable to gender, ethnicity/race, socioeconomic status or lifestyle, and optimizing recruitment and retention of multi-ethnic research participants, particularly African American people who are at excessive risk for cardiovascular and respiratory disease/illness. This core will develop an infrastructure to facilitate research with racial and ethnic minorities by fostering community partnerships and preparing culturally competent nurse researchers. Successful projects require a partnership between the researcher and the community throughout the research process. Research is needed to delineate factors that hinder and enhance cardiovascular and respiratory health. The delineation of these factors must be not only culturally and ethnic specific, but also specific to gender and context. Moreover, the research developed to enhance cardiovascular and respiratory health must be theory-driven and based on sound research methodology. At the outset cultural competence will be developed for working with African-American subjects. Cultural competence for working with subjects from other ethnic minorities will be included as dictated by research projects, for example Latinos. This Core will develop partnerships with selected ethnic communities, develop the cultural competence of CRCRH Investigators, assure cultural competence of projects supported by the CRCRH and provide guidance for recruitment and retention of multi-ethnic subjects.